Photographer's Note

Toronto, Canada.

Taken at the annual aboriginal festival at the Rogers Centre. Always an interesting and colourful event. I was here with the youth I work with so I didn't have much time for photos--and when we split off and I finally had the time, my batts ran out. heh.

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A political note: the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is to be voted upon any day now. Twelve years in the making, the vote was delayed last week due to Canadian, US, Australian, and NZ resistance.

I spoke with Vicky Corpuz, UN Chair of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, about this and she expressed her shock at Canada. Despite it's assumed moral high ground with human rights issues, it remains one of the key oppressors of indigenous rights. Vicky especially had harsh words for Cdn oil and mining corps.

Our PM got alot of press last week after the Chinese snubbed him after he apparently insisted in speaking out about human rights. Vicky had this to say:

"Itís all show of course. [Canada] likes to use human rights to get more deals from the Chinese. It's all very economic, a very self-serving thing [for the purpose of] gaining economic profit."

Nice work, the foreground bokeh is very interesting, providing a strong contrast with the lady. Maybe a little bit of separation between the two would help, if you had been a step or two to the right, but this is a very well seen piece with lots of tonal and thematic contrasts.

So, you're saying Alex, that our Prime Minister is trying every dirty trick possible, just to get a good economical deal for our country.
That S.O.B....I knew it... I knew it...!
And I voted for him...that bas...rd !!!!
I'll tell ya'
If we won't stop him of doing such awful deeds, we're going to end up again in that humiliating first, or second, or third position on the list of the countries with the highest level of living. Brrrr!
No wonder, Chinese leader of democracy snubbed him. Who wouldn't?
Cute photo, though...
Have a great, politically correct WE, pal.
g.

I'm not surprised all three countries have held up the vote-- whatever their respective reputations, the attitude of government and society at large is unanimously apathetic and prone to management strategies, especially when aboriginal lands sit on top of extremely profitable natural resources...

In light of that, your picture speaks volumes of that kind of attitude-- you have the anonymous non-aboriginal who's less than smypathetic facial expression is obscured behind the blur but the mentality is still there if one looks closely enough.

One of my courses at U of T went into Canadian aboriginal self government and it has been most interesting comparing the two countries in my head-- the differences are, unfortunately, rather small. Though in Australia we're not even in a position where we can acknowledge the horrors of our own Residential Schooling system (stolen generation) or be at a stage where aboriginal demands are even recognisable or widely known in the public sphere, beyond the stereotypes of alcoholism, drug use and abuse to which the only answer provided by state and federal governments is to either throw more money at the problem or debate exactly who's juridiction it even falls under. It's still a paternalistic/management political culture.

Hi Alex,
This is a very nice photo, with a very informative note. Thank you for your comments. From the research I have done, and the courses I have taken, I would most certainly agree that Canada's work (or lack thereof) on indigenous rights needs a lot of improvement. The overall theme of this photo is very powerful, and technically, it is very good as well.
Thanks,
Sarah

Now exploitation of natural resources without proper consideration of the lives and property of the indigenous people (who might even be the rightful owners of some of the resources) is certainly reprehensible. But the Chinese appear guilty of (a) far worse exploitation of indigenous people, (b) massive political repression with critics generally imprisoned or killed, (c) manufacturing by slave and child labor, (d) repression of thought via government control of media including internet, (e) displacement of millions in the name of urban development, and (f) denial of any kind of say by the average person in how they are governed. To imply moral equivalence of the two nations seems in itself a crime against humanity. (So no green smiley for Vicky.) Back in the Stalin era, there were lots of people claiming the west's crimes were worse than any supposedly committed by the Soviet Union.

Now about the photo--the right side is great, I like the solemn contemplative expression. But I think the left side is just too dominant. Nice, but not one of your best. Regards, Ken.